Cousin is a swordfish preserver, a purveyor of taxidermied marlin with a workshop filled with the glassy eye balls of the long-nosed denizens of the Pacific, his walls lined with paints of blue, of green, of silver, of yellow, hues that will shimmer in the lights of restaurants, hotels, million dollar homes, not the depths of an ocean deep and dark, and cousin labors on the labors of our other cousins, men who take our family boats on to the waters of our home with tourists ready to do battle, rod against spear, to claim victory, to reel in, to reel out, to struggle and sweat under a noon day sun, to feel their muscles burn with the knowledge that they are the heroes of their own story, and cousin captures every moment in the arc of the dead, bringing them back to life.
Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan, has work forthcoming in Cutleaf Journal and Prairie Schooner. Read Hard Skin (2022) and Kahi and Lua (2022) and preorder Bitter over Sweet (2025) from Santa Fe Writers Project. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at melissallanesbrownlee.com.
"to feel their muscles burn with the knowledge that they are the heroes of their own story, " So beautiful and powerful, Melissa!
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